More headlines: Ralph Nader on Health Care

We can do better than our current low quality health care

The US was ranked 37th regarding the quality of health care. This is not only embarrassing but also unacceptable. European countries provided for their people 30 years ago. Why can’t we do it now in a period of economic boom? It’s possible. What we must
first do is to collectively understand the inequalities afflicting so many of our citizens, to translate this understanding into a demand for solutions. What is so normalized now must now be defined as intolerable and unworthy of this great country.

Source: Nomination Acceptance Speech
Jun 25, 2000

US should adopt Canadian single-payer system

[We need] universal health care from the cradle through the nursing home, with a single-payer system like Canada’s. In the U.S., 24 cents of every dollar spent on health care
goes to administrative costs, but the Canadians spend only 11 cents. The difference could pay for covering the 47 million Americans who now have no health insurance.

Source: POZ, President Nader! By Doug Ireland
May 10, 2000

Ownership & price controls on drugs developed with tax money

We should take all drugs developed with taxpayer dollars - that includes most AIDS drugs - and put price restraints on them. Instead of giving a monopoly on these drugs to just one company, multiple licenses should be issued to any company that wants to
sell them. That would create competition and bring down prices. If there’s any opposition by the drug companies to this, government should say to them, “If you’re going to engage in profiteering, we’ll make them ourselves - and more cheaply than you.”

Source: POZ, President Nader! By Doug Ireland
May 10, 2000

We lack universal health care due to business lobbying

Think of the functions of government that are not performed because the government is an indentured servant to big business. Why don’t we have universal health insurance? Every other western nation has. [We don’t] because the drug industry lobby, and the
HMO lobby, and the health insurance company lobby, and the hospital chains, and the doctor’s lobby, for years said no. So we’re now heading towards 50 million people uninsured, including millions of children, in the richest country in the world.